Ioana Manolache: "Memories" - Wax installation

Inspired from a tradition in my Romanian Orthodox religion, this installation consists of two wax tablets composed of hundreds of melted wax candles. In my religion, when someone enters the church they light a candle in memory of either an alive loved one or a deceased loved one. On the left side of the church, there's a space specifically designed for the lighting of candles in memory of people still alive, while on the right side, one lights a candle in memory of a deceased loved one.
This division between the left and the right constitutes in the fact that Jesus Christ stated : "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, `Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world'... Then He will say to those on His left, `Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.'" Matthew 25:31-34, 41
Thus, the left is regarded with the live people that are sinners and the right with the righteous deceased people. I went to the Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, and at the end of the sermon, I collected all the left over candles on both left and right. I melted the candles into the specific categories, thus having two tablets in result. The viewer is invited to kneel and place both hands on the wax: then, he will feel a temperature difference between the two. The wax on the deceased right has a chilling coldness while the one on the live right side has a certain "human" warmth to it.

Materials: paraffin candles (wicks and wax), table, white cloth.

Dimensions: (of wax tablets) 9 in x 12 in